Il Giardino, the Vancouver restaurant which set the bar for fine Italian dining in this city 37 years ago, will be closing this spring.

The restaurant is operated by the pioneering Umberto Menghi, now 65; he will continue to run his two Whistler restaurants, Il Caminetto and Trattoria di Umberto as well as Villa Delia, a cooking school and guest villa near Pisa, Italy.

The Tuscan-inspired restaurant on Hornby St. with its signature garden courtyard will make way for redevelopment.

“It was a very bittersweet decision to make, as Il Giardino is one of my proudest career achievements,” he said in a statement. “The staff and loyal guests at Il Giardino are like family to me but I’m happy we are leaving on a high note and that diners will get a chance to experience Il Giardino once or twice more before we close and say one last good-bye. I’m deeply grateful for the loyalty and longstanding support of my gracious staff and chefs.”

Over the years, Menghi operated 10 Italian restaurants both in Vancouver and in the U.S. They include La Cantina, Al Porto, Settebello, Il Palazzo and a franchise called Umbertino’s.

John Bishop, of Bishop’s restaurant in Kitsilano, worked as a chef for Menghi from 1975 to 1984. “He took fine dining to another level, though it was a formal experience,” he says. “He was creative. He brought in new, lighter, northern Italian cuisine that people had never experienced. He brought flair and finesse to the local scene and people flocked to his restaurants.

“It was busy 24/7 until the recession hit in the early 1980s,” says Bishop. “He’s always been an entrepreneur in a business when it’s sometimes wiser to be more cautious. But he had foresight, for example, to go to Whistler when it was still almost a rubbish dump.”

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